Discard Trope: Cry Laughing

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Created By: Lyendith on August 13, 2013 Last Edited By: Lyendith on August 26, 2013

Troped

Cry Laughing

It starts as a laugh, and ends as sobs

Name Space:Main

Page Type:Trope

It is said that laughing and crying are very close actions, despite usually expressing opposite emotions. So close that in fiction, a character faced with a dreadful situation may start laughing out loud, before that laugh progressively melts into sobs. When this happens, the initial laughter is usually just there to mask the distress and isn't genuine. It's sort of a way to say "I would like to laugh at that, but I just can't".

It can also be done as a form of Mood Whiplash, where the character is in a middle of a laugh and learns bad news, immediately making them switch to tears.

This trope is surprisingly prevalent in Real Life with some often resorting to laughing when faced with any depressing or traumatic moments, before starting to express their true grief in tears.

Examples:

At the end of In the Mouth of Madness, when John Trent finally watches the movie adaptation of Cane's book In the Mouth of Madness and realizes that it was just a novelisation of everything he did in the last few days an that he may just be a fictional character, he breaks down laughing for a minute before crying.

This happens in Devil May Cry 3 at the start of mission 20, after Lady finishes off her father Arkham. After unloading a whole clip from her gun in him, she drops to her side, laughing into the air before being overcome with tears mid-laughter.

In Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, Tsumihoroboshi-hen, Rena spends a long monologue insisting that she had no other choice than killing Teppei and Rina who were swindling her father, and that telling her friends would have been useless. Then she mocks them and starts laughing out loudů before bursting into tears, as she understands fully well that this may not have been the right choice.

Happens to the second Robin, Tim Drake, in a flashback in Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker. The Joker applied ample amounts of Cold-Blooded Torture to Tim, leaving him Brainwashed and Crazy. When ordered to kill Batman, after The Joker has him in a position he wouldn't be able to protect himself, Tim breaks through the brainwashing and murders The Joker instead, laughing like a maniac the whole time. Once The Joker succumbs to his injuries, Tim's laughing abruptly turns into uncontrollable sobbing, as the weight of everything that transpired suddenly sets in. The flashback ends with Barbara/Batgirl trying to console him.

In The Simpsons, Krusty switches between laughing and crying after he reveals he's bipolar.

In the second episode of Futurama, Bender taunts a park mascot who says that he still has his self respect, tries to laugh it off and falls into this trope.

Mascot: Hello, sir! I'm Craterface! I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to confiscate that alcohol!

I kinda remembered a gag for when a guy meets his hunter, said guy laughs and then cries, probably because he thinks he's hallucinating only to remember that he isn't. It was in a western cartoon, but I forgot.

At the end of In The Mouth Of Madness, when John Trent finally watches the movie adaptation of Crane's book In the Mouth of Madness and realizes that it was just a novelisation of everything he did in the last few days an that he may just be a fictional character, he breaks down laughing for a minute before crying.

This in Devil May Cry 3 at the start of mission 20, after Lady finishes off her father Arkham. After unloading a whole clip from her gun in him, she drops to her side, laughing into the air before being overcome with tears mid-laughter.

Happens to the second Robin, Tim Drake, in a flashback in Batman Beyond Return Of The Joker. The Joker has warped Tim's mind to be devoted to him, driving the Boy Wonder Laughing Mad. When ordered to kill Batman, after The Joker has him in a position he wouldn't be able to protect himself, Tim murders The Joker instead, laughing like a maniac the whole time. Once The Joker has passed on, Tim's laughing abruptly turns into uncontrollable sobbing, as the weight of what he did and was done to him suddenly sets in. The flashback ends with Barbara/Batgirl trying to console him.

^ Well that's exactly what the Handling Spoilers page is for. I personally don't know the show we're talking about here so I can't do anything about it. Someone who's familiar with the example has to decide what's worth tagging and what's not.

Happens to Antimony in Chapter 6 "A Handful Of Dirt" of Gunnerkrigg Court. She and her friend Kat sneak into a habitat area and eat cherries from a tree, staining their faces and hands with the red cherry juice. When the groundskeeper catches them, the girls are laughing over being "caught red-handed" when Antimony's laughter dissolves into tears (her mother died fairly recently). The groundskeeper wisely and unexpectedly withdraws, allowing the two girls to talk privately.

Could we call this trope "Craughing" as many of this troper's friends have called it ? There is a chance that it may sound new or odd, but since it's a portmanteau of crying and laughing, and there's always the laconic, could it be a feasible option for a name?

Happens to the second Robin, Tim Drake, in a flashback in Batman Beyond Return Of The Joker. The Joker applied ample amounts of Cold Blooded Torture to Tim, leaving him Brainwashed And Crazy. When ordered to kill Batman, after The Joker has him in a position he wouldn't be able to protect himself, Tim breaks through the brainwashing and murders The Joker instead, laughing like a maniac the whole time. Once The Joker succumbs to his injuries, Tim's laughing abruptly turns into uncontrollable sobbing, as the weight of everything that transpired suddenly sets in. The flashback ends with Barbara/Batgirl trying to console him.

EDIT: Also (@Arivne), did I miss something or what's the thing that's supposed to make the current title witty? I'm not saying that it should be changed but apparently my English isn't as good as I thought it was since I can't see a joke there.

^ I don't know if "cry laughing" is an expression like "pleurer de rire" in French ("laughing so hard it makes you cry") but... if it is, that's where the pun is supposed to be, kind of. English is not my mothertongue, so...

^ You mean the case where it starts as a cry and ends in laughter? I wonder if it should be handled as a variation or inversion of this, or if it should be a trope of its own.

They both have a similar narrative function where the character's initial reaction is revealed to be false, but the first one uses it to emphasize the character's desperation whereas the second one is used to show that things are not as bad as they seem.

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